The former Northridge Mall site is on the market again in the midst of a foreclosure lawsuit from one of its largest creditors.

Wisconsin Energy Corp. filed the foreclosure case Aug. 2 against U.S. Toward Enterprise Group Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Chinese company Beijing Toward Enterprise Group.

Wisconsin Energy won a $450,000 judgment against U.S. Toward and the previous owner, Inland Commercial LLC of Beverly Hills, Calif., in January for unpaid utility bills incurred by Inland. As part of the settlement, Inland, which also holds the mortgage on the property, signed part of the mortgage over to Wisconsin Energy.

The foreclosure filing confirms that U.S. Toward stopped making payments on the mortgage in August 2011, as first reported by The Business Journal in February. It asks the court to declare foreclosure and force a sale so Wisconsin Energy can recoup the $450,000.

The Northridge site, at North 76th Street and West Brown Deer Road on Milwaukee’s far northwest side, has languished since the mall closed in 2003. The property is one of the larger vacant parcels in the city at 46 acres with an 800,000-square-foot building.

U.S. Toward bought the property in 2008 for $6 million with plans to turn it into a Chinese wholesale and retail center. But the company had trouble getting financing in China and obtaining visas from the U.S. government for potential investors, said Yi Wan, the company’s U.S. representative. It considered selling the property in 2011 but decided instead to investigate redevelopment opportunities.

Now, it has changed its mind and decided to sell, Wan said. It signed a contract with Cassidy Turley Barry Inc., Milwaukee, last week to sell the property.

The property is listed at $2.75 million, said Jim Barry, Cassidy president. It has an assessed value of $2.5 million, down from $6.6 million in 2009.

For more on this story, read The Business Journal's Friday Aug. 17 print edition.

Associate Editor Stacy Vogel Davis covers retail and tourism for the Milwaukee Business Journal. She also covers restaurant news through her Table Talk blog on The Business Journal website and column in the weekly edition.

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